Patco Enterprisesis the name I use as an umbrella to keep everything
else under."Fruit Crate Labels (dot) Com" is the active part of the business I do with labels, buying, selling,
informing, writingbooks, working on film and video presentations. Ther are
many different ideas being developed all at the same time. The home page
for this site <click here> is at this link.
That page describes what my label business is now. The following is a brief
explanation of how this all came to be in the first place. I had NO IDEA
simply collecting a few fruit labels in 1978 would lead to all of this,
and, all of what is to come. Anyway, here is hot it all came together.

ANTECEDENTS :The story began simply in 1978 when Pat started innocently
collecting labels as home decore. But as the interest, collection and fervor
grew, the territory of interest spread throughout California, Oregon, Washington
and British Columbia. During his travels, the collection grew dramatically
as did the interest in western American history, which these labels represented.
Therefore, a newsletter was planned to connect collectors he had met along
with way, in an effort to build a community of interested parties -- a growing
network of over 1,000 contacts worldwide.

The first communal effort at bringing other collectors
together was The California Pear Label
Collector's Association, founded in 1978, which was
a subscription-based ($15.00 per year) "club" for collectors,
and offered a monthly newsletter and held semi-regular swap-meets in Northern
California. This club included more than 60 members annually, and held regular
swap meets.

This later endeavour was later re-maned The California Fresh Fruit Label Exchange,
in an effort to incorporate the interests of more collectors in more regions.
This new incarnation became a free information sharing service for all collectors
of all types of labels from across America. The "C.F.F.L.X." as it is known today, became
a free information service for collectors, which has continually been utilized
since it's inception.

Patco Enterprises
began in 1985 as an umbrella under which many different facets of Pat Jacobsen's
label collecting interests could be identified as the hobby began to take
on a larger Coastal community scope.

A few years later Crate
Expectations Publishing was started as the publishing
arm of the enterprise, because of the difficulties in getting major publishers
interested in label books. So, the time came to become one's own publisher,
and put out the first in a series of intended books and other productions.

Pat's Packin' House
began hortly afterwards as an entitie dedicated to using vintage images
for new products, such as calendars, coffee cups and t-shirts. Never reproducing
actual labels for sale, but, intended to bring to the public eye, long lost
advertising images, general unique in character. This also included any
interactions with licensing companies and manufacturers who want to create
new gift items bearing vintage label images, including Pat's own personal
line of computer mouse pads.

The Sample Room was
named and defined as the actual retail sales portion of the label business,
which contains all the currently "for-sale or trade" stocks Pat
had stored away as the decades of collecting and gathering went by.

Patco Digital Trading Company is one of the newest branches of the enterprise: featuring access
to Patco's image banks of tens of thousands of unique, vintage images, offering
licensing opportunities to manufactures who are interested in creating gift
items bearing vintage images world-wide.

Patco Records:
Also,affiliated with Patco is the musical career of Pat Jacobsen, bassist
and vocalist. For information on his resume, availability for recording
and producing, etc, follow his links to the Hasbeenwannabees section of
this site.

Patco Internet, is
the branch of Patco Enterprises representing Pat's interests and skills
in computers, computing and Internet technologies. This department offers
information, consulting services, etc., on computing in the Mac or PC environments,
web site design, development, marketing and education.